So here is another question. Since it's been legal in CA. for quite sometime and you have lots of doctors there writing scripts for it, wheres the data and testimonials from patients and doctors on how it has improved treatments?

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington

"Pain is the main reason people ask for a prescription, says Barth Wilsey, MD, a pain medicine specialist at the University of California Davis Medical Center. It could be from headaches, a disease like cancer, or a long-term condition, like glaucoma or nerve pain."

Moreover: "How Does It Work?

Your body already makes marijuana-like chemicals that affect pain, inflammation, and many other processes. Marijuana can sometimes help those natural chemicals work better, says Laura Borgelt, PharmD, of the University of Colorado. "

Side Effects

Side effects of marijuana that usually don’t last long can include:

Dizziness Drowsiness Short-term memory loss Euphoria

*More serious side effects include severe anxiety and psychosis.

Risks and Limits

Medical marijuana is not monitored like FDA-approved medicines. When using it, you don’t know its potential to cause cancer, its purity, potency, or side effects.

Only people who have a card from a doctor should use medical marijuana. Doctors will not prescribe medical marijuana to anyone under 18. Others who should not use it:

1. People with heart disease 2. Pregnant women 3. People with a history of psychosis

From what I gather from this data, the biggest reason for pot not being widely legalized in the states is not knowing how it's going to effect each individual. We have a pretty good idea as to how alcohol and tobacco effects individuals, and continue to adjust regulations on those products, but marijuana is more of a wild card. For every person who says they have never had any issues of psychosis - long term or short - by smoking marijuana, there is the person(s) who have(has.) Developing and regulating the drug to eliminate that risk should be the first steps to legalizing the drug before making it legal across the board. That's my opinion.

Do we need a bunch of psychotic people behind the wheel with ice-cream in one hand and a slice of pizza in another?

Yoda wrote:Medical marijuana is not monitored like FDA-approved medicines. When using it, you don’t know its potential to cause cancer, its purity, potency, or side effects.

This this the part that grabbed me. So in CA you have doctors prescribing something that is not monitored and they seem to have no way of knowing if it's something that could harm a patient due to impurities or other side effects including cancer due to the way it is administered. Show me a doctor that would condone the inhalation of any type of smoke and I will show you a quack.

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington

The problem with both sides in the marijuana legalization debate is that the pro-legalization side will claim forever and a day that the side effects aren't as bad as they probably are. The anti-legalization side will claim forever and a day that the side effects are worse than they probably are. The truth is likely somewhere in between.

Yoda wrote:Medical marijuana is not monitored like FDA-approved medicines. When using it, you don’t know its potential to cause cancer, its purity, potency, or side effects.

This this the part that grabbed me. So in CA you have doctors prescribing something that is not monitored and they seem to have no way of knowing if it's something that could harm a patient due to impurities or other side effects including cancer due to the way it is administered. Show me a doctor that would condone the inhalation of any type of smoke and I will show you a quack.

If it was only for an already terminal patient who has tried other unsuccessful methods of pain management and the marijuana works to reduce or manage the pain, I wouldn't consider a doctor condoning that to be a quack.

Yoda wrote:Medical marijuana is not monitored like FDA-approved medicines. When using it, you don’t know its potential to cause cancer, its purity, potency, or side effects.

This this the part that grabbed me. So in CA you have doctors prescribing something that is not monitored and they seem to have no way of knowing if it's something that could harm a patient due to impurities or other side effects including cancer due to the way it is administered. Show me a doctor that would condone the inhalation of any type of smoke and I will show you a quack.

If it was only for an already terminal patient who has tried other unsuccessful methods of pain management and the marijuana works to reduce or manage the pain, I wouldn't consider a doctor condoning that to be a quack.

True statement. I would add however, at this stage more powerful painkillers would likely be required.But if this worked, all the better.

Yoda wrote:Medical marijuana is not monitored like FDA-approved medicines. When using it, you don’t know its potential to cause cancer, its purity, potency, or side effects.

This this the part that grabbed me. So in CA you have doctors prescribing something that is not monitored and they seem to have no way of knowing if it's something that could harm a patient due to impurities or other side effects including cancer due to the way it is administered. Show me a doctor that would condone the inhalation of any type of smoke and I will show you a quack.

If it was only for an already terminal patient who has tried other unsuccessful methods of pain management and the marijuana works to reduce or manage the pain, I wouldn't consider a doctor condoning that to be a quack.

That's just part of the picture and I believe a small part. Unless CA has a high rate of terminal patients.

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington

Experimental mice have been telling us this for years, but pot-smoking humans didn't want to believe it could happen to them: Compared with a person who never smoked marijuana, someone who uses marijuana regularly has, on average, less gray matter in his orbital frontal cortex, a region that is a key node in the brain's reward, motivation, decision-making and addictive behaviors network.